Dorchester County Citizens Call Center will be activated at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 13. It will take reports of property damage as well as to trees blocking neighborhood roads.

The number is 843-832-0393 in the Summerville area and 843-563-0393 in the St. George area.

Due to phone issues, callers may need to utilize one number or the other and can call either number, regardless of location.

Dorchester County Emergency Management Department says power is being restored as fast as possible. At the height of the outages, SCE&G was reporting over 40,000 customers in Dorchester County without power. They are now reporting under 16,000.

County Councilman Jay Byars issed a statement saying road conditions are and will continue to be dangerous because of debris that continues to fall.

When stoplights are out, remember to treat them as a four way stop. All county offices will be closed on Thursday, February 13.

Damage Assessment Teams: Will be activated on Thursday at 11am.

U.S. Postal Service

After experiencing the severe weather challenges of the past thirty-six hours, the U.S. Postal Service is working to open post offices and extend mail delivery to as many customers as possible in South Carolina’s 290-296/299* ZIP Code area. Postal operations in the Upstate and Midlands mostly, have been hampered because many roads and highways have been impassible, limiting the number of employees who were able to get to work and impacting the Postal Service’s ability to move mail between processing facilities and local post offices. In coastal locations, operations are largely unaffected.

“The safety of our employees must always be our first priority,” says Acting Greater South Carolina District Manager Sharon Rogers. “With state officials urging people to stay off the roads as much as possible, we could not ask our employees to put themselves in harm’s way by venturing out on the roads if they felt it was unsafe. We were able to deliver a very small percentage of mail on Wednesday, and open some post offices for a few hours, but overall, like other companies in this area, our operations were greatly reduced.

With the break in the weather that we expect later today, we should have more employees available, which will allow us to open more post offices and extend mail delivery to some of the customers we were not able to reach on Wednesday. We will attempt delivery everywhere our employees can do so safely. We ask our customers to be patient as we work to restore operations to normal levels. ”

Ms. Rogers urges customers to clear areas around their mailboxes of ice, snow and other obstacles that may hinder letter carriers during delivery.

For the location and hours of post offices in your area, go to: www.usps.com or call 1-800 ASK USPS (1-800-275-8777.)

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